


The Evil We Love

by anythingbutplatonic



Series: Olicity Hiatus Road Trip Collection [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, Strongly implied rape/sexual assault, Summer of Olicity, discussion of Oliver's time in the League of Assassins if you're bothered by that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:10:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver isn't the only one who sees the horrors of the past in his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Evil We Love

Felicity, much to her frustration, never remembered her dreams. 

She would often complain to Oliver about it as she made coffee for them both in the mornings.

“So I’m pretty sure I had a dream last night where I was being chased by a killer whale, only I don’t remember why  _specifically_  it was a killer whale or why I was being chased, only that I  _was_ , and there was definitely something about a tennis ball and and the sand on the beach not being the right shade of white.....you’re laughing at me.”

And she would turn, brandishing her empty mug that was yet to be filled with delicious, fresh coffee, to find him hurriedly trying to re-arrange his features into an expression that didn’t make it look like he had been laughing at her. Which he had been, she was certain, because Oliver couldn’t lie. Oh, he tried, but Felicity knew all his tricks, and she would tell him so, waving her mug in a vaguely threatening fashion that only made him crack a smile once more. 

“It’s not funny, Oliver. Do you know how frustrating it is not to be able to remember your dreams? It’s like doing a crossword puzzle where you  _know_  you know the answer to a clue but the word refuses to conveniently be in your brain at that exact moment and you’re left all day trying to remember that one little word, and you can’t concentrate on anything else. Gah!” She huffed in exasperation, putting her mug down on the counter with more force than was absolutely necessary. “It’s maddening.”

It was a constant thorn in her side; or perhaps it was more like an itch from a particularly uncomfortable sweater, not enough to make her want to take the sweater off, but just enough that she was left on edge all day, and no matter what she did, a small corner of her brain always came back to that damned itch. 

So, as they reached the second month of their trip, she started keeping a notebook and pen on the nightstand by the bed, determined to have some kind of record of the dreams she had by writing down everything she could remember about them the moment she woke up.

It provided Oliver with a seemingly endless source of amusement that Felicity was both irked by, because she knew he wasn’t taking her seriously, and found strangely endearing in spite of herself, because it meant that he felt comfortable enough around her to tease her about her quirks and oddities (of which there were many), even if she wished he’d stop  _smirking_  every time he caught sight of the notebook lying on the nightstand. 

And it was very off-putting when she was trying to get his attention for other, less-suitable-for-children activities.

There was a part of her that wondered whether she was being selfish, even obnoxious, by flaunting her inability to remember her dreams in front of someone who could never forget the past because of the frequent reminders of it he saw in his nightmares. She wondered whether she was being ungrateful, having this knack for forgetting and wishing she didn’t, when Oliver remembered everything and wished that he couldn’t. 

She never asked him about it, however, not directly. They were still learning how to talk about those kinds of things, and sometimes it came easy, but more often it was difficult. They opened old wounds while simultaneously keeping them hidden, striking a careful balance between learning to be honest with one another in new ways, and respecting each other’s desire to keep some things private for just a little while longer. 

Sometimes, however, the situation compelled them to talk, even when they perhaps didn’t want to, and it was on these occasions that being honest was hardest of all. 

The night that Felicity had her worst nightmare in months was one such occasion. 

It had started off as a good dream. She and Oliver were back in Nanda Parbat, in the red-draped, candle-lit room where they’d consummated their love for the first time. 

_“You have done so much,”_  she heard herself say in the dream, repeating the same words she had said to him on that very night. _“You have saved so many people’s lives. And you have changed so many for the better, including mine. Knowing you has changed my life. You… opened up my heart in a way I didn’t even know was possible. I love you....”_

_Slowly, so slowly, Oliver removed her glasses, and they were looking right at each other, seeing each other for the first time._

_They surged forward at the same time, meeting in the middle in a searing kiss that made Felicity’s toes curl. This was it, this was what they had held out for for so long, this is what they had tried so desperately to deny but couldn’t any longer, this all-consuming lust - no,_ love _\- for each other that was strong enough, now, to break down any and all barriers that still stood between them._

_His shirt came off, and then hers, and he was picking her up like she weighed nothing, as if carrying her wasn’t a burden but a blessing, a gift, and she was a precious object that he longed to have as close to his body as possible, the heat radiating off his bare skin making her head spin._

_Later, she would wonder how on earth they’d made it to the bed, so desperate they were to be close to one another, to touch, to feel, to let go of whatever it was that had been holding them back for - three years, three long, long years of sidelong glances and barely-there touches, getting in each other’s personal space as they lied to one another and to themselves,_ no, no, we’re just friends....

_And then she was lying on her back, him leaning over her, his broad chest blocking out almost all of the light directly in her line of vision, and she marveled at the way the flickering candle flames caught the shape of his body, the ridges of muscle and uneven, scarred skin, except now his scars were beautiful and she longed to put her mouth on them, to feel the rough skin beneath her lips, turning what had once been reminders of unimaginable horrors into sites of love and adoration._

_No moment had ever been more perfect. No moment had ever made her feel like this, like she was the only woman in the world he could see, the only woman in the world he_ wanted _to see, and she blossomed in the knowledge that only he could give this to her, the man who had opened up her heart and made her feel loved in a way she never had before._

_She spoke his name in a gasp, the syllables catching on an inhale as he moved his mouth from her breasts to her throat. “Oliver...”_

_“Oliver Queen is dead.”  
_

_The hands on her hips became rough and unyielding as she became aware, not of blazing bare skin, but cool leather and the icy shock of a blade resting near her waist; she saw not a bare torso marked with the familiar criss-crossed lines of survival, but thick, dark material that scratched at her hot, sensitive skin._

_“Oliver...don’t do this, please...” she heard herself begging. “Please, Oliver, this isn’t you....you don’t have to do this.....I love you, we all love you, Thea and John and Laurel and Lyla, we all care about you....”  
_

_“Oliver Queen is dead!” the man before her barked, the man who was not Oliver and yet wore his face and spoke with his voice.  
_

_Not Oliver. Al Sah-him._

_“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes now, running down her temples and into her hair, spread out on the pillow like a halo._

_“Yes,” he said. “I do.”  
_

_Her mouth opened in a scream loud enough to wake the dead as a large hand wrapped itself around her throat...._

“No!”

Felicity shot bolt upright, the bedsheets twisted around her waist, shaking from head to toe. Her pyjamas were soaked through with sweat, as was her hair, which stuck uncomfortably to the nape of her neck, but she couldn’t seem to make her limbs move to peel it away from her sticky skin. 

“Felicity?” 

_Oliver_. His voice, full of concern. But it hardly mattered; she couldn’t stop shaking; she barely registered the shift and dip of the mattress as he crawled closer to her, reached out for her, tried to comfort her. 

“Felicity....”

His voice was soft, but all she heard was the harsh, cold tones of Al Sah-him. 

_“Oliver Queen is dead.”_

She felt him reach for her, his warm hand on her thigh, but his touch was like a brand, and she rocketed away from it, to the very end of the bed, where she sat, huddled like a toddler, her forehead on her knees, and the shaking wouldn’t stop.

It wouldn’t stop.

This time, she heard the squeak of the mattress springs.

“Don’t,” she whispered hoarsely. “Don’t come near me.”

_“You don’t have to do this.”_

If he reacted at all to her request, she neither saw nor heard it; she was much too preoccupied with how to stop the shaking, how to pull more air into her lungs, how to separate what she had seen in her dream from the reality around her, how to remind herself that Oliver was not Al Sah-him, and that he would never hurt her. 

He would never hurt her. 

He would  _never..._

After a while - it could have been a few minutes, it could have been a few hours, Felicity couldn’t tell - she heard the mattress springs squeak again, and then the soft padding of bare feet on the hardwood floor.

Oliver came around to where she sat at the end of the bed and knelt in front of her. 

“I know what it’s like to have bad dreams,” he said, the gentleness with which he spoke making her want to cry all over again, “and I can help.  _Let_  me help. Please.”

A few moments passed. Then, Felicity found her voice. “It wasn’t you. We were in Nanda Parbat, just like that first time, and everything was so wonderful, just the way it was when we....and then it wasn’t  _you_. It was you but it wasn’t  _you_ , and you just kept saying over and over that Oliver Queen was dead, and you had a knife, and it was really cold on my skin, and then....”

She couldn’t finish the rest, but she didn’t have to; she heard Oliver’s sharp intake of breath, and that told her that he had understood.

Then he said, “Felicity, I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” she sniffed, wiping at her sweaty, tear-stained face with the edge of her pyjama top. “It wasn’t you.”

“But it was,” he replied. “That’s the point. Felicity, I....I did those things. I made those choices. I joined the League, I killed someone, I kidnapped my best friend’s wife. I let you believe that I wasn’t myself any more, that I was someone else, someone you didn’t recognize. Someone who was bad instead of good. I did all of those things, and I have to live with the consequences of doing them.”

Slowly, he pulled her hands away from her face and enveloped them in his own. The warmth of his skin was reassuring, and when he squeezed her fingers gently, a gesture of the purest affection, she almost felt normal again.

“Felicity....I love you. And if there’s still a part of you that doesn’t understand how I could have done the things that I did, if there’s still a part of you that feels hurt and betrayed, I’ll still love you, because I have to accept that my choices are my own, and that I don’t get a say in what people think of me because of them.”

“Do you understand?”

The words, exactly the same ones that he’d said to her over two years ago in the Queen Mansion (and didn’t that feel like it was a lifetime away?), drew the bubble of a laugh from her lips, and she snorted through her teary eyes and blocked nose, glad of a happier memory to wipe away the horrible nightmare she’d endured. 

Oliver, confused by her laughter, asked, “Is that a yes?”

Felicity nodded, sniffing. “I understand. I guess you’re right. I guess there is a part of me that isn’t really over what you did....what you had to do. But that’s okay.”

“It  _is_  okay,” Oliver agreed. “It’s more than okay. You shouldn’t feel as though you need to hide what you really think from me. If we’re going to do this - you and me, us, a relationship - we need to be honest with each other. I don’t want to make the same mistakes I would have made eight years ago, because this isn’t the kind of relationship I would have wanted eight years ago. It’s better. It’s  _so_ much better.” He smiled, and Felicity returned it weakly, still a little shaken but able to  _breathe_ , now, the worst of the nightmare washed away. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to make this work, if you’ll let me.”

“I do,” she whispered. “I do let you.” 

She allowed him to guide her back into bed, to pull up the sheets around her and tuck her in like a parent would, though there was nothing parental nor even platonic about the relationship they shared. 

She still felt sticky from sweat, but she could shower in the morning; the nightmare had exhausted her, and she simply wanted to sleep. 


End file.
